Tasniem Anwar is assistant professor at the department of Criminology, Faculty of Law. Her research focusses on counterterrorism measures, security technologies, and law. Anwar has an interdisciplinary background in international relations, post-colonial studies, and socio-legal studies. She obtained her PhD at the department of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam in 2022.
Anwar's research focusses on questions of security and critically examines how European societies decide to take measures in the here-and-now to secure society for potential future threat. In her work, she combines insights from post-colonial theory, socio-legal theory, critical security studies, and science-and-technology studies. She is currently leading project FUTURESEC on data-driven security decisions. Her previous work focussed on empirical legal research on terrorism trials. Her work combined academic and artistic methods and output, which was disseminated through project "The courtroom as a Landscape" in two courthouses in the Netherlands. In 2026 she was awarded the KNAW Early Career Partnership to further her research agenda on aesthetics as form of governance.
Tasniem Anwar teaches a variety of courses in the Msc and Bsc programme of Criminology. The thematic focus of her teaching lies with preventive security, extremism and terrorism, and critical theory.
Anwar is regularly invited as an expert on counterterrorism and counterterrorism financing. She has provided guest lectures at other universities including Science PO and Erasmus University, as well as at the Asser Institute.
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